Golf Talk

Rory disrespects Tiger, yet again.

Tiger is officially back and he’s as strong as ever. After storming into the lead with a round of 62 on Friday, Tiger seized control and never let go until the end. He built his lead to 6 shots after a round of 67 on Saturday. Jim Furyk was the closest with Zach Johnson just behind Furyk heading into Sunday. Today, Tiger put it into cruise control and added 4 more shots to his lead to get to a four round total of 22. Zach Johnson would match Tiger’s four shots to get to 15 under but still 7 shots behind Tiger. The win is the fourth for Tiger at this event.

Another bit of news is the odd withdrawl of Rory Sabbatini who did not cite a specific reason. Hours later, Rory’s agent released an official statement saying that Rory had shin splints and that was the reason why he withdrew. Rory was dead last and 28 shots behind Tiger at the end of the third round. Despite withdrawing, Rory will still collect the $175,000 for participating in the Target World Challenge. Rory is the first player in the 11-year history of the tournament to withdraw.

According to Waggle Room, an anonymous locker room attendant saw Rory clean out his locker Saturday night and overhead Rory say that he was headed for Maui. Tiger officially declined to comment when asked what he thought of the withdrawl, but you can tell he was not pleased at all. Tiger is the tournament host, so in a way, Rory did a dine and dash, a gas and run, whatever you want to call it, he did it.

This is just another example of Rory’s long history of being an idiot. First, there were the “Tiger beatable” comments. Then later on, he said he just didn’t like Tiger, and Tiger went on to pummel him at Bridgestone.

All I can say is, what goes around, comes around.

Tiger Woods, Target World Challenge

Tiger looked good in first action.

Do we have enough tees, balls, do we have fourteen clubs in the bag?? It sure sounded like Tiger was working off a little rust when you hear that kind of exchange between player and caddie. But that was about the only indication that Tiger had been away from the game for the longest he has in his entire professional career.

Tiger was stroking it pretty good holing birdies on hole one and two. He would save par three straight times with putts of six and ten feet. It all looked very good for Tiger in the first round except he had a brain cramp on 18 with a double bogey. It started with a horrible tee shot, then a pulled recovery and the end result was a 6. Still, Tiger finished with a 69 at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks and was just one shot behind first round leader Jim Furyk. Three others are tied with Tiger including Masters champion Zach Johnson, Henrik Stenson and Rory Sabbatini.

As for the leader, Jim Furyk, he hasn’t played since Oct 17 at the Grand Slam of Golf in Bermuda, almost as long as Tiger. But he sure didn’t look rusty. Furyk was at his typical best, scratching and clawing his way to the first round lead. Amazingly, Jim has held the first round lead three times at this tournament, but has never won it.

Heading into the weekend, I still like Tiger to pull this out. If it weren’t for an errant tee shot on 18, Tiger would probably have a one or possibly two shot lead heading into Friday.

Tiger Woods, Target World Challenge

Tiger wins the PGA Player of the Year again.

The Tiger Woods news keeps on rolling. Just one day before Tiger returns to action after a 2.5 month hiatus, the PGA announces that Tiger was voted as the PGA Tour player of the year for 2007. No surprise there. This the ninth time Tiger has won the award, just shy of his 32nd birthday.

What a year it was for Tiger. He won his 13th major, the PGA Championship at the end of the season. He also finished second at both the Masters and US Open tournaments. He won the inaugural Fedex Cup, or PGA playoffs by winning the final two Fedex Cup events collecting a cool $10 million deferred in the process. He finished with the lowest scoring average for all Tour players, or the Vardon Trophy as they call it. He led the PGA Tour’s money list. On and on it goes.

Most remarkable about the year that Tiger had perhaps was that he did it with a scaled down schedule, to accomodate the birth of his baby girl, Sam Alexis. Imagine the year Tiger would’ve had if he won even just one of those two runner up finishes in Majors and played more than 20 events.

Golf.com points out that not all was rosy for Tiger this year. There were those 2 aforementioned losses in Majors. At the British Open, he had one of his worst performances. Then late in the year Tiger lost to Phil Mickelson at the Deustche Bank. And finally, Mike Weir beat Tiger straight up in the final day of President’s Cup play, though Team USA did win easily overall.

I think Tiger can live with those mulligans, and with all the distractions behind him, 2008 should be yet another year of the Tiger.

Tiger Woods, PGA Tour

Tiger looking forward to kicking butt again.

He’s back… Tiger ends his longest hiatus in his entire 10 year plus career, a 2.5 month getaway to enjoy his wife, Elin and new baby Sam. Tiger will be welcoming over a dozen of the top golfers in the world to compete in The Target World Challenge in Thousand Oaks California starting on Thursday. The 16 player field is an invite only tournament and all 16 players are basically your elite golfers.

Along with host, Tiger, there will be world number 3 Jim Furyk, world number 4 Steve Stricker, world number 8 Padraig Harrington and world number 10 Vijay Singh. Other notables include the loud-mouthed South African Rory Sabbatini, Masters champion Zach Johnson, Henrik Stenson, Luke Donald, Niclas Fasth, Paul Casey, Lee Westwood, Brett Wetterich, Mark Calcavecchia, Colin Montgomerie and Fred Couples.

With regards to playing for the first time since September, Tiger wrote on his website that he is excited to get back to the golf course and defend his title. He goes on to say that this is the ninth year of The Target World Challenge, and that he’s thrilled at the opportunity to raise funds and awareness for the kids that the Tiger Woods Foundation supports. The winner will receive a whopping $1.35 million. If Tiger wins he always gives his prize money right back to the Tiger Woods foundation. Each participant will receive at least $170,000 for participating (wow, imagine that, $175,000 for just showing up, I’m in the wrong business).

Coverage will be on the Golf Channel on Thursday/Friday and NBC on the weekend.

Tiger Woods, Target World Challenge

Elin Nordegren wins her lawsuit over fake nude photos.

Tiger and his wife Elin Woods scored a major victory, this time it was in court and not on the course. While the Ryder Cup was being played in Ireland last year, an Irish magazine called the Dubliner published an article and accompanying photo of a supposed nude Elin Nordegren. Except that it was Elin Nordegren at all. Elin, a former model, has not been photographed nude anywhere at anytime. Elin sued the magazine and today the magazine admitted guilt and agreed to pay around $180,000 in damages. Tiger and Elin have agreed to donate all the proceeds to breast cancer research.

Good on Tiger and Elin, I don’t think there is anyplace for that. The worst part of it was that the pictures weren’t even of Elin. If they were at least real, legit nude photos of Elin, you couldn’t accuse the magazine of fraud, just bad taste. Because the pictures were of someone else that the magazine claimed was Elin, they were fraudulent. People bought the magazine thinking they were seeing pictures of a nude Elin but instead got duped and got nude pictures of a look a like.

As for getting a voyeur shot of Elin naked, I think that’s nearly impossible. The way Tiger and Elin live in their barricaded premises in Florida, you’d probably get shot before getting closer the one kilometer of the Woods’ residence.

I think that was one of the reasons why Tiger and his wife decided to release photos of baby Sam on their website very early on. The only way to really combat these paparazzi photographers is to release your own photos. You decide which photos get released to satisfy the public’s desire to see you. The more you try to hide and not show yourself, the more they want to take your picture.

Tiger Woods, Elin Nordegren

Tiger likes to change his clubs regularly.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Tiger Woods is considering changes to which clubs are in his bag. In an interview with a Florida newspaper, Tiger said he usually changes his irons every 9-10 months. Tiger went on to say that wedges and 8-irons take a lot of pounding so he changes them even more often. The only thing that Tiger has not changed is his putter. Tiger has used the same putter since 1999.

We know that Tiger has flip-flopped drivers. First with his Titlelist driver, moving to a NIKE driver (his title sponsor), then moving back to the Titlelist (much to the chagrin of NIKE Golf executives). Tiger has not been shy to shed a club despite his sponsorship deals in order to find the perfect fit. Tiger said in the past he has used a 2-iron in his 20s after using a 1-iron in his teen years.

Myself, I used to change clubs about once every two years. First it was just to get with the latest technology, whether that was hybrids, or graphite shafts, etc… But as my swing as settled in the past three years or so, I’ve stuck with the same set of clubs. I just think that once you’ve settled into a swing, the clubs you are using are very much a part of that swing. When you change clubs, inevitably you have to adjust your swing to the different weight, length and grip of the new club. Now, you can get clubs that exactly the same weight, length and grip, but a different club will still feel different. About the only thing that I change on a regular basis nowadays is the ball. I haven’t found one particular one yet that I think is far better than others, I’ve used Titlelist, NIKE, Top Flite, Mizuno and more. The one big difference is to make sure you use new balls each round, once you’ve used a ball for the majority of a round, the ridges have been worn off and so you don’t get the same spin with a well-used ball.

Tiger Woods

Tiger makes news even when he isn’t golfing.

Well, clearly the offseason isn’t really here yet as there are three tournaments with some of the big guns still out there trying to fund their private jets and ten thousand square foot mansions. But Tiger Woods is in full off-season mode but has kept himself quite the busy little bee so far.

Golf Designing in Dubai:

According to news reports Tiger Woods has finished designing three out of 18 holes for the Al Ruwaya in Dubailand, the first of two courses he has been paid to design. The 7,800-yard, par-72 course is part of a larger tourism project featuring a 55-million square-foot development with a hotel, golf academy, million dollar mansions and more. Tiger says he isn’t worried about the mostly desert terrain, he plans to include plenty of bunkers. According to the report, Tiger will own one of the mansions next to the course, a modest 50,000 square-foot house. Why this is all newsworthy beats me, I guess anything that has the two words Tiger and Woods is worth mentioning.

I did NOT fire Hank Haney:

The internet message boards and blogosphere had been jumping all over the rumor that Tiger’s swing coach, Hank Haney had been fired. Tiger cleared the air by posting on his website that this was NOT the case and that Hank simply had to take some time off to attend to an undisclosed family manner. Tiger goes on to say that he doesn’t really need a swing coach that much more anyways. That’s great, if Tiger doesn’t need a swing coach, neither do I.

Alexis Sam update:

Tiger gave us an update on his daughter Alexis Sam saying that she can hold a club now. He goes on to say that he couldn’t hold a club until he was nearly 1 years old, I guess that means, watch out Lorena Ochoa.

Tiger Woods

Now you can drink Tiger in a Gatorade bottle.

In a year of firsts, first-time father, first-time course designer, and now first-time to be named after a drink. Not that this makes any bit of sense, but Gatorade will begin marketing a brand new drink called the “Gatorade Tiger” as early as March of 2008. Tiger is the first athlete to have a drink named after him. The drink will be available in a cherry blend, citrus blend and grape. The “Gatorade Tiger” brand is supposed to be just the first of many line of Tiger brands with the Gatorade line in the coming years. This is all part of the endorsement Tiger has with Gatorade that will see them pay him close to $100 million over five years.

According to Tiger’s agent, Mark Steinberg, the beverage endorsement came down to Gatorade which is a subsidiary of Pepsi Co. and Vitamin Water. With the backing of Pepsi, it’s easy how Gatorade won out. Tiger started drinking Gatorade out on the course a few months ago in the summer when many speculated that an endorsement deal with Gatorade was on. Tiger says he likes drinking Gatorade and has made it a part of his training and on course regiment.

As part of the partnership, Gatorade released video of Tiger under going sweat analysis testing with the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, testing such things as his sweat rate and energy needs during exercise. What they plan to do with that analysis beats the heck out of me. Maybe they wanted to collect bottles of his sweat and sell it on eBay.

Personally, I like Gatorade. I like to drink it while I’m out on the course as well. It keeps my energy level up all the way through a full round. Some guys I know bring like 2 or 3 bottles with them. I think that is a little excessive as all the extra energy will turn into fat.

LPGA Tour, Samsung, Ernie Els, George McNeill

With the end of the President’s Cup and the fall season here, the real Tiger Woods has shut it down and will bunker down in Florida the rest of the year. For all of you fans that are going through Tiger withdrawal we bring you the Dave Chappelle Show.

I haven’t seen the Dave Chappelle show in a while but I’m a big fan of his stuff. In this episode, Chappelle does a really funny parody called the “Racial Draft”. The blacks get the first pick overall and pick Tiger Woods proclaiming him 100% black. The jews pick Lenny Kravitz despite the announcers going with Madonna. The whites take Colin Powell but the blacks agree to give the whites Colin Powell only on the grounds that the whites take Condoleeza Rice as well. The whites agree but the blacks then want Eminem but the whites only agree if the blacks take back OJ Simpson. Finally, the asians, upset at the blacks taking Tiger Woods first overall and proclaiming him 100% black, take the Wu-Tang Clan.

Konichiwa B*tches!

Tiger Woods, taking a dump, golf funnies

Who knew Phil was such a ping-pong guy.

Final Score
United States 19.5
Internationals 14.5

Well, it never turned out to be the barn-burner we all hoped it would be. The Internationals never really showed up for this one, other than Mike Weir who scored the most points for the Internationals. Big ups to Mike as there were plenty of questions regarding his selection by Gary Player for the last roster spot. Mike stepped up in front of the hometown crowd and gave them something to cheer about, faced the pressure and delivered. As for his win over Tiger on Sunday, as inconsequential as it was for the overall President’s Cup score, it was huge for Mike. It ends his season on a high note and hopefully he can continue the momentum into next season. In the grander scheme of things for Tiger Woods, the loss was insignificant. Tiger is terrible in these team events and some have wondered whether he even adds value to Team USA.

Quote of the day goes to Phil Mickelson. After destroying Vijay Singh 5-4 on Sunday, Phil said that the best part of the whole week was playing ping-pong with his Team USA teammates in between rounds. Phil went on to say that there are some good ping-pong players on the team and that they went at it pretty good. Now it all makes sense, Team USA are horsing around with ping-pong led by their fearless ping-pong leader Phil Mickelson, meanwhile Team World was busy practicing trying to win. And guess who wins, the team that plays ping-pong. That’s classic.

Day 4 - Singles

Match 23
Team US Scott Verplank
2 and 1
Team Int’l Rory Sabbatini

Match 24
Team US Lucas Glover
2 up
Team Int’l Ernie Els

Match 25
Team US Phil Mickelson
5 and 4
Team Int’l Vijay Singh

Match 26
Team US Tiger Woods
1 up
Team Int’l Mike Weir

Match 27
Team US Woody Austin
2 and 1
Team Int’l Angel Cabrera

Match 28
Team US Zach Johnson
2 and 1
Team Int’l Adam Scott

Match 29
Team US David Toms
2 up
Team Int’l Trevor Immelman

Match 30
Team US Stewart Cink
6 and 4
Team Int’l Nick O’Hern

Match 31
Team US Steve Stricker
1 up
Team Int’l Geoff Ogilvy

Match 32
Team US Hunter Mahan
3 and 2
Team Int’l K.J. Choi

PGA Tour, President’s Cup

Phil doesn’t appear to have a worry in the world

Final Score after Day 2 four-ball:
United States 7
Internationals 5

Match 7
Team US Mickelson/ Mahan
1 up
Team Int’l Cabrera/ Goosen

Match 8
Team US Woods/ Furyk
5 and 4
Team Int’l Singh/ Appleby

Match 9
Team US Johnson/ Howell III
3 and 1
Team Int’l Els/ Weir

Match 10
Team US Stricker/ Verplank
2 and 1
Team Int’l Scott/ Choi

Match 11
Team US Cink/ Glover
1 up
Team Int’l Ogilvy/ O’Hern

Match 12
Team US Austin/ Toms
Halved
Team Int’l Immelman/ Sabbatini

So it would appear that I spoke too soon yesterday when I said that the Americans were running away with this thing. As Mike Pedersen commented, Tiger Woods had his worst match play loss ever (which says alot considering his record in team match play is not all that impressive to begin with). The Americans just looked out of sync all day. Despite getting walloped, I saw Tiger laughing most of the day, Phil frolicking with his wife, and Jack still had a smile from ear to ear. Maybe they know something that we don’t.

Biggest gaffe of the day goes to Stewart Cink who missed a short 3-footer on the 17th and would end up losing the match by one. I bet Jack is re-thinking about that 4 and a half footer he conceded yesterday to Singh/Weir, or maybe not, again they seem to know something we don’t based on their demeanor.

The biggest story of the entire tournament so far has been Woody Austin. They should make him the captain, he’s playing like a man possessed. Call him Roy McAvoy, he’s lighting it up.

Tomorrow we can look forward to a mixture of foursomes and four-ball play. As usual, Saturday sets up for the big finish so it’s the critical day for either the Americans to re-establish a big lead or for Team World to take the lead themselves. We’ll see soon how this thing finishes out.

PGA Tour, President’s Cup

Photo by Ryan Remiorz, The Canadian Press

Tiger Woods in favor of castration.

Tiger Woods chimed in on the announcement by Tim Finchem for a new drug policy set to begin next spring. According to Tiger Woods, he wants the cheats that get caught to be punished to the full extent. Tiger didn’t specify exactly what kind of punishment it should be other than it should be severe and uncompromising.

I love it how in golf, all these guys can speak up and talk smack and Tim Finchem doesn’t even respond. In the NBA, if you run your mouth off, you’ll have one of David Stern’s goons roughing you up outside of the gym. In the NFL, Roger Goodell just kicks you out.

Of course, we know the reason why Tim Finchem kisses the players asses. It’s the players that make up this whole damn tour. And after the Fedex Cup debacle, he knows he needs to win back the players trust. According to Tiger, Tim will be meeting with the players to decide which drugs will be banned in addition to the penalties.

You know what would be really funny? If at some point, Tiger was the one that tested positive. Now that would be a story. Especially after coming out and saying that he wants harsh punishments for cheaters. Lets be real here, if anyone should be tested, it’s Tiger. If you look at the before 1997 and now 2007 photos, it’s like 2 different people. Now I’m willing to give Tiger the benefit of the doubt that he’s legit, after all he is Tiger Woods and has owned everybody on Tour for the better part of a decade, but I think a lot of people privately are wondering if Tiger is on something.

PGA Tour, Tiger Woods, Tim Finchem, drug testing

Maybe those bean burritos weren’t such a great idea after all. Just like you and me, Tiger Woods needs to take a shit every now and again in between holes. This clip was taken mid-round in this year’s 2007 US Open at Oakmont which he lost by one stroke to Angel Cabrera. Now we know why he was missing all those short birdie putts, he was backed up and constipated. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

I love it how there’s a crowd to wait for him to finish his dumpage, and security guards too. After all, imagine someone pulling the old outhouse tipover.

I think I like Tiger more now than I ever did before…

Tiger Woods, taking a dump, golf funnies

Tiger wins, like taking candy from a baby. (Photo by Streeter Lecka)

In Tigeresque fashion, TW destroyed the field on Sunday to claim yet another title en route to the easy $10 million crown and the Fedex Cup, and the claim again that he is the greatest golf player in the world. Nobody was even close to touching him, Tiger said it himself before the round that he’s basically ‘untouchable’ when he leads by three.

The only faux pas on his round was hitting into the pair ahead of him. Tiger boomed his 5-wood 286 yards and skipped through the green where Zach Johnson and Sergio Garcia were putting. Sergio putted out with no problems, but Zach three-putted. Afterwards, Zach said he was affected, but he shrugged it off. Tiger said he apologized. In this case, I blame the officials. That’s why they have those portly fellows walking around is to let them know when to hit. Someone should’ve told Tiger to hold off until the group ahead was finished.

As predicted, no Tiger vs Phil matchup on Sunday. My Yahoo!Fantasy picks did extremely well as did most who picked Tiger. I had Sergio and Hunter in my list so I got a nice bump from him. Missed out on Calcaveccia but no big deal. Phil finished middle of the pack as expected.

PGA Tour, Fedex Cup, Tour Championship, Tiger Woods, Zach Johnson

Very funny clip from Chris Rock TV special where he goes to Harlem to ask the people what they think of Tiger. The consensus is, “Who is Tiger Woods?”

Tiger Woods, Chris Rock, Harlem, golf funnies